Sloan-Porter House
(ca. 1810 & 1890)
One of Mecklenburg County’s last known surviving antebellum log homes, the Sloan-Porter House remained in the Sloan and Porter families for more than 200 years.
10124 Walkers Ferry Rd, Charlotte, NC 28278
George Watson Sloan (1838-1902) and his wife Nancy Jane Smith Sloan (1842-1923) purchased 149 acres of land from the heirs of his great-great grandfather Alexander James Porter (1742-1833), a veteran of the Revolutionary War. The tract included a two-story log cabin built circa 1810, making it one of the oldest extant houses – and one of the last known surviving antebellum log homes – in Mecklenburg County. The Sloan and Porter families were early settlers of western Mecklenburg County, arriving in the 1750s. Member of the two families helped found the Steele Creek Presbyterian Church, served as elders of that congregation and as leaders in the local community, and fought in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and the Civil War. The Sloan-Porter House remained in the Sloan and Porter families for more than two centuries until 2014.
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Having immigrated to Mecklenburg County with his parents before 1775, Alexander Porter assembled a plantation of nearly 500 acres in the Steele Creek community between 1776 and 1803. Using the enslaved labor of at least four persons, he cultivated cotton and corn and raised a variety of animals, including cows, pigs, chickens, and bees. It is believed that the extant log house that forms the basis of the Sloan-Porter House was constructed and occupied by Porter and his family prior to his 1833 death. In 1871, after his surviving children inherited the house and property, Alexander’s descendants disagreed about the future of the property, prompting the sale to George and Nancy Sloan.
George served in the Confederate Army from July 1861 until he mustered out at Appomattox Courthouse in April 1865. Following the war, he became a substantial landowner and served terms as a trustee of Berryhill township and as an election judge. He and Nancy had seven children, four of whom survived to adulthood. The Sloans expanded the existing log cabin in the late 1880s or early 1890s with a prominent two-story addition on the west side of the cabin to accommodate their growing family. It is likely that the one-story kitchen and dining room addition on the east side of the cabin was constructed at or about the same time. Upon Nancy’s death in 1923, son Hazel Ottus Sloan (1883-1978) – their youngest child – inherited the property. Around 1930, he widened the Sloan-Porter House along its west side with the addition of a bathroom, mud room, and pantry.